AT THIS time 100 years ago, Worcester was mourning the passing of actor-impresario William Gomersal who had been lessee of the Theatre Royal in Angel Street for 21 years.

A Londoner by birth, he had appeared on stage at Worcester as a young man but later went to America, appearing with the famous Barnum and Bailey Circus in New York, and running two theatres in this country before coming to Worcester to take charge of the Theatre Royal in 1880.

He became a popular local personality, as did his actress wife Amy. They lived at 20 The Tything.

The Journal for this week of 1902 reported the great number of mourners who attended William Gomersal's funeral at Astwood Cemetery and, in his Journal comment column, Crowquill, spoke warmly of the actor-impresario: "It is widely recorded that he was one of a fast-disappearing type of actor, equally at home in Shakespearean parts, in old comedies, burlesque or farce.

"An extremely funny incident has been told of William Gomersal's appearance as Prospero in a performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest. At the end of the play, Prospero, Ferdinand and Miranda sailed on in a galley to speak the final lines. However, scarcely had Prospero commenced: "Now my charms are all o'erthrown than the mast, sail and the side of the galley toppled over and fell into the waves.

"A roar of laughter showed how the audience saw the fitness of the thing. The disconcerted actor, stooping forward, seized the mast and pulled the whole structure to its former upright position, and resumed the second line "And what strength I have's mine own." That was quite enough: not another word was heard, and the curtain fell, dividing an audience convulsed with mirth from an irate manager vainly searching for a vanished stage carpenter."